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Relationship between the Antigens of Blood and Skin

Abstract

IT is not possible to graft skin with permanent success between individual rabbits or individual human beings of ordinary genetic diversity. Skin so grafted is destroyed by a reaction conforming in broad outline to that of an active acquired immunity1,2,3. The red cells of 'transplanted' blood may likewise generate an active immune state, though in the familiar case of the ABO antigens of human beings the reacting system of antibodies is ready made, and not acquired in direct response to an antigenic stimulus.

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References

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MEDAWAR, P. Relationship between the Antigens of Blood and Skin. Nature 157, 161–162 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157161a0

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